The scourge of greige. (Shutterstock) For the last six years, I have been running the architecture blog McMansion Hell, which highlights the most ridiculous examples of bloated, nouveau riche residential architecture in the United States. When I began the blog in 2016, the Internet was rife with…

Photo-Illustration: Source Photograph: Isabella County Sheriff Office This article was featured in One Great Story, New York’s reading recommendation newsletter. Sign up here to get it nightly. 0:00 / 0:00 Audio: Listen to this article. One afternoon in January 2022, the parents of two freshmen at…

For roughly three decades, the JPEG has been the World Wide Web’s primary image format. But it wasn’t the one the Web started with. In fact, the first mainstream graphical browser, NCSA Mosaic, didn’t initially support inline JPEG files—just inline GIFs, along with a couple of other formats…

Presented to you in the form of unedited screenshots, the following is a ‘conversation’ I had with Chat GPT upon asking whether it could help me choose several of my own essays to link in a query letter I intended to send to an agent. What ultimately transpired is the closest thing to a personal…

“My predictions about achieving full self-driving have been optimistic in the past,” Musk admitted to investors in 2023. “I’m the boy who cried FSD." He certainly has. Many times. Indeed, Musk has a long history of making outlandish promises and unfulfilled predictions about his businesses—and it's…

Fair warning: this is the longest thing I've written on this newsletter. I do apologize. Soundtrack: EL-P - $4 Vic Listen to my podcast Better Offline. We have merch. Last week, Bloomberg profiled Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella, revealing that he's either a liar or a specific kind of idiot. The article…

Refusing Tech Fascism May 14, 2025 by Fascism is on the rise. In Germany, in Europe, in the US, in India, all over the planet. The version of it that has been dominating for the last few years – especially the form it has taken in the US – has sometimes been called "Tech Fascism". Why should we talk…

I’m excited to publish this guest post by Nick McGreivy, a physicist who last year earned a PhD from Princeton. Nick used to be optimistic that AI could accelerate physics research. But when he tried to apply AI techniques to real physics problems the results were disappointing. I’ve written before…

Facebook Threads Bluesky Mail to Print page Submit a letter: Email us letters@nybooks.com Reviewed: The Eye of the Master: A Social History of Artificial Intelligence by Matteo Pasquinelli Verso, 264 pp., $24.95 (paper) Silicon Valley runs on novelty. It is sustained by the pursuit of what Michael…

The movement for corporate city states cannot believe its good luck. For years, it has been pushing the extreme notion that wealthy, tax-averse people should up and start their own high-tech fiefdoms, whether new countries on artificial islands in international waters (“seasteading”) or pro-business…

Bianca Wylie 10 min read· Feb 16, 2025 -- responding with slowness in relations In 2012, I did some of my first work as a facilitator to support a public engagement process for the Kay Gardner Beltline Park and Trail in Toronto. Through that work, I had one of my earliest experiences with what it…

This article was featured in the One Story to Read Today newsletter. Sign up for it here. The Bar Is Closed A short drive from my home in North Carolina is a small Mexican restaurant, with several tables and four stools at a bar facing the kitchen. On a sweltering afternoon last summer, I walked in…

The crusade against bright headlights has picked up speed in recent years, in large part due to a couple of Reddit nerds. Could they know what’s best for the auto industry better than the auto industry itself? The crusade against bright headlights has picked up speed in recent years, in large part…

Guest Essay May 18, 2025 Credit...Nadine Redlich Listen to this article · 7:00 min Learn more By Mr. Richards lives in Edinburgh and is the author of the forthcoming “Overnight: Journeys, Conversations and Stories After Dark.” Leer en español How civilized to catch a train, enjoy a meal on board and…

(Jabin Botsford/The Washington Post) Opinion by Paul Waldman Paul Waldman Columnist covering politics EmailBioFollow Columnist Dec. 11, 2020 at 5:45 p.m. UTC If you were dropped in from another country without knowing anything about the United States and surveyed our current political moment, what…

Alphaville’s resident Tesla watcher is away on holidays, but Bethany McLean’s “He’s full of shit” drop in Vanity Fair last weekend about the House of Musk’s dubious SolarCity investments should not go ignored. According to Tesla much of McLean’s piece is erroneous. But frankly, we’re mainly…

In a fair society, there would be no billionaires. Bernie Sanders says they shouldn’t exist and Elizabeth Warren sells mugs of their tears. I’m talking about billionaires and making the case that an economic system that allows them is immoral. We have arrived at an obscene inequality crisis, in…

Every few days, I open my inbox to an email from someone asking after an old article of mine that they can’t find. They’re graduate students, activists, teachers setting up their syllabus, researchers, fellow journalists, or simply people with a frequently revisited bookmark, not understanding why a…

Excerpted from “Just Say Yes,” by Bob McDonald. Copyright 2024. Published by Douglas & McIntyre. You probably have a photo album or drawer full of old pictures of yourself during a past era of your life, when your hair was a different colour and length, and your clothes were distinctive for the…